#general
General Discussions & Topics
Thread
Hey everyone! I'm reaching out because I'm looking for some advice on how to collect nominations for awards within our customer community and how the winners are chosen. Our team is really excited about recognizing the amazing individuals who contribute so much to our community and to highlight our customers in an award ceremony, but we're not quite sure where to start. If any of you have experience with this or could share some tips on how to effectively collect nominations and ensure a fair selection process (perks if you have worked with self-nomination awards as well), I would be incredibly grateful! Looking forward to hearing your insights and learning from your experiences. Thanks in advance for your help! :blush::sparkles:
Hey Marley! I support awards programs for a few different clients so can provide some insight into what others are doing.
Normally, self-nominations are collected either by an internet form provider (Typeform, Google Forms, etc.) or an awards platform like AwardForce. Nomination window is advertised on social, email, via customer-facing teams, etc.
We also do supported or solicited nominations. Where we know a good customer story exists, we dig for it! Either by inviting the customer to an interview (then creating a case study or other asset + the award nomination) or we use existing customer content to create the "bones" of the nomination and then share with the customer for their input and approval. I've also done outreach that is less supported, but invites the customer to submit because their story is a great fit for [award category].
I think judging is best done by third-parties. We've used analysts or industry experts in the past. Personally, I find it to be a bit tricky when a company has a panel of it's own leaders/employees picking their "best" customers. I think it's better to have others as a filter/buffer so your customers don't feel like your company doesn't value them (if they don't win). A few internal folks on a committee rounded out by third-parties also works well. In the past, we've used exclusively third-party folks.
This is super helpful! Thank you so much Alexie!
Happy to chat further if you'd like more detail on anything. Feel free to DM.
Other folks running customer awards that also have brilliant advice: @Daniel Palay @Kevin Lau @Perri Chaikof @Ari Hoffman @Leslie Barrett